Spatio-temporal Characteristics of Successive Plosive Consonants in the Same Place of Articulation: An Electropalatographic Study

Abstract

Objectives: This paper used electropalatography (EPG) to investigate the actual pronunciation when two plosives with the same articulation position appear successively. We aimed to determine the presence of the preceding consonant (C₁) in two successive consonants (VC₁C₂V) with the same articulation place.Methods: Tongue-to-palate contacts were recorded during the pronunciation of 8 words and 4 sentences containing those words by 5 normal adults and the closure duration and the maximum contact frame for utterance units (word, sentence), meanings (real word, nonword), and syllable structures (VC₁C₂V, VCV) were analyzed.Results: The closure duration in the syllable structures and the maximum contact frame in the meanings showed significant differences. The closure duration of the VC₁C₂V structure was significantly longer than that of the VCV structure in case of words; however, the difference reduced in the case of sentences. The maximum contact frame of the real words was significantly higher than that of non-words.Conclusion: Since the temporal characteristics between VCV and VC₁C₂V structure was distinguished and the tensification of C₂ indirectly showed the existence of C₁. These result support the fact that the preceding consonant is not deleted in two successive consonants with the same articulation place.